I'm thumbing through a notebook, maybe a few months old, when I come across a particularly interesting page.

"Not long after a major outbreak here of what I call the Solanum* virus, we began banding in groups. At first we tried to barricade ourselves in a high school, but the idea turned into a nightmare when several of the exits were broken open, and the rest were blocked. We had to make way to the roof and execute a drastic back up plan that included setting fire to the inside of the school. We managed to kill a lot of them, but we also lost some of our then friends and family.

As I write this, I can't but express great sadness over what comes next. It was only 3 hours ago I was infected. And in the next 18 I will have finished becoming one of them. So I write that whoever may find this has a chance to survive. The basement to the MacArthur building is locked tight. Inside is a stockpile of weapons, ammo, and food to last for several months, as well as electricity, running water, and sanitation. Everything is taken care of and took far too much effort that almost feels wasted now. The key to that building is in my pocket.

I won't kill myself, but I will try to move as far as possible away from the building. I'm no sadist, but I'll be damned if someone is going to gain the benefits of our hardwork without fighting for it. *Solanum was the name we started using after Max Brooks' "The Zombie Survival Guide" and we decided it best to use that, as it made the most sense. My name is Maxwell Jergon, and I pray that if you find me, you make my second death must faster than this one."

The house I found it in is pretty ravaged. I don't know who this guy is or what he looks like, or where he might even be. I don't even know where the MacArthur building is. I recognised the book, and it's inspiration. And there's a copy under the desk where I found the book. Inside, there's a map and a photo of the Mr. Maxwell Jergon. He was right, at least to a degree, he's not a sadist. A sadist wouldn't give advantages to someone they're dealing great pain to.

Sandra comes in the room and says, "Hey babe, we better go. There's some skull suckers headed this way." Without turning I ask, "How far?" "Maybe a mile and running like it's Thanksgiving." "Alright, let's shake some dust."

I grab my shotgun and we head out to the remnants of our caravan and pile inside the Subarban that's closest. Inside, I draw a cigarette and light it. Crack the window and take a deep draw. In the rearview the zombies get close, and then fade out of sight as we speed off, peppering them with bullets as we go.

The greatest risk was in the beginning. When I look back and think of how much I had to hide, to run, to scrounge together before we could make a stand when we had to. How much we had to avoid those pretty little gun shops and Army Surplus stores until we could muster the strength to scavenge what was lest. I remember when it all began for me.

....

I was in a shoe store with my mom. It wasn't a busy day, per se. And I was sitting, bored as usual, while she paced around grabbing shoes and trying them on. I remember looking out and seeing a wave of those corpse crunching assholes rushing towards us. Leaping through the glass windows and everyone trying to run, completely panicked.

I climbed up on top of a shelf and tried to grab my mom and pull her up. But I couldn't. I got her up about half way before one tackled her into a mirror. There was nothing I could do. I suppose, and thought a lot looking back, of how I should've jumped down and fought to save her. That would've been the right thing to do. But in the interest of self preservation, or cowardice, whichever people prefer, I set myself to climbing onto the roof supports and finding a way into the ventilation and up onto the roof.

I had the car keys. I could see my car. I could hear endless screams of peolpe being...god it was just horrible. Then I get brought back to the present moment when Bobby says, "Hey Diego, where to man?" I hand a map to Charlie, his navigator of sorts, and say, "MacArthur building. But find a place where we can pick up a welding torch on the way. There's got to be a hardware store around here somewhere."

Sandra looks at me oddly and says, "What's the plan?" "Plan is, since we don't have a key to get into the safehouse there, if there is one, we're gonna bust it open and seal it after we get loaded inside. We've got enough strength right now to take that chance." "What's supposed to be there?" "Safe haven until we can figure something out for the long term." I reply. I thump the cigarette out the window and draw another.

Turtleflipper

March 23rd, 2006, 07:00 PM

Damn. Where were you when they made Resident Evil: Apoyalypse? Coulda saved that movie....

Snoop

March 23rd, 2006, 07:23 PM

I thump the cigarette out the window and draw another.

I never "thumped" a cigarette out the window before. I usually dump them.

When you "draw" another, I assume you mean light up again rather than physically drawing a cigarette?

P.S. Skull Suckers was a good phrase for the villains.

Mr. Hyde

March 25th, 2006, 03:03 PM

From the details on the map, Charlie tells me the MacArthur building is about twenty miles, not too far. But it's deep in a city. A major urban sprawl. A gigantic concrete and glass mouse trap will hundreds upon hundreds of ghouls waiting at every turn and corner for us to come. But the hardware store comes first, as does getting gas for the convoy.

We pull into a spotty Gas station slash auto shop. We pull in, and pile out. Sandra stands guard while Charlie grabs the nozzle and starts filling the Suburban. Bobby waits in the driver seat. I get out and take Marco with me inside to look for a torch. Inside there's blood spatters, a few limbs, and the place is trashed. The shotgun in my arms is sawed down a bit, double barreled. For those close encounters that make your spine tingle. That kind of thing that gives you an oak in the pants.

Marco comes around on my left and spots the torch we need. We call to Alison and David to load it. Then we finish clearing the autoshop and head inside. Chances of finding something here are slim. If there were zombies, they'd have heard or smelled or seen us by now.

Inside, the clerk behind the counter is gone, but there's blood everywhere and his revolver, a .357, is sitting in a puddle. The holes blown in the roof and counter point to an idea that he was caught off guard and fired upwards as he fell back. There's some ammo left under the counter.

Pretty soon we've finished filling up and we're ready to go. And we can see in the distance the same crowd of undead that had been following us. Never tiring. Never breaking pace. I slide the shotgun inside and grab a pair of binoculars and get a closer look. In the midst. Decomposed to a degree, dead as the day God killed him, is Maxwell Jergon.

"New plan!" I call to the crew. "Slide that torch inbetween the gas tanks. Get something to pry open the covers. Cut the nozzles. And I need a rifle."

They follow orders to a tee. THey pry open the caps and drop the torch and its tank in between the gas tanks. Marco grabs a machete and slashes the long black cords and gas spills out onto the ground in a growing puddle. Sandra gets back in the SUV and shouts at me, "What's going on?" "We don't need the torch. The target is right there, and if we can take him, and lure the rest here, then we can thin the numbers, swing back, get the key, and press forward."

I kneel and take careful aim. Watch as his head bobs in and out of the cross hairs. Then, breathing slowly as I can, I exhale and squeeze the trigger. His head pops like a melon. A red mist of chunks and blood erupt from the back of his head.

We pull ahead straight off into a field. No one ever accused zombies of being smart. They run straight at us, and in time get close enough for me to fire again. I aim at the canister. Then fire. Having been used before our arrival, an explosion was guaranteed. And there is one. Huge. It fires outward igniting the gas and pouring flames into the reservoirs while shrapnel flies in all directions. The reservoirs fill and follow suit. Blowing chunks of concrete into the air, sending several zombies into the air like ragdolls.

We swing around them, laying into them with a few well placed rounds and make our way to key. After searching Jergon, I find it in his pants pocket, and climb back into the Suburban. Charlie leans towards us and laughing says, "Next top, MacArthur building. Salvation. Food. And I hope to God some beer."

Iluvatar

March 26th, 2006, 12:57 PM

I'm going to come to your house and beat you senseless with your keyboard if you don't keep writing this.

Mr. Hyde

March 26th, 2006, 05:06 PM

Iluv, that'd take some work since my current one is wired. The wireless broke.

Thanks for the kind words Immigrant, Snoop, and Iluv. I'm kind of having to read as I write, since I want it to go along with Brooks' "Zombie Survival Guide" so it might take a while to finish the whole thing. But I'll try to have another section to read tomorrow.

Mr. Hyde

March 27th, 2006, 06:35 PM

The city lies ahead, standing tall and empty of the usual nonstop commerce. The only real difference to it, from my view, is that instead of living zombies preying on trendy fashions, there’s a horde of undead zombies preying on trendy people. Even in my most cynical moments I’d never be able to figure out which was better. We stop about a mile outside.

"So what's the plan?" Bobby asks from driver seat. Charlie glosses over the map and then says, "Ya know, we could shoot straight up the street, and be there in a direct route. Or we could swing around on one of these bridges on either side, then blow the bridge afterward to cut them off we get followed." He hands the map to me and I give it a solid look for a few minutes.

"If we blow one bridge, then we'll only have one route back unless we move on out of the city. Also, blowing one bridge would mean they flood the other bridge trying to get over. They aren't smart, but they aren't braindead either. If we go straight, we draw a lot of attention....ya know, even if we blow one bridge, they've still got that straight shot inward. Hmm."

Sandra sits for a moment and then says, "I've got it. Since the river forks inward and meets behind the MacArthur building, there's no bridge straight. We split into two groups, and move around. Blow the two bridges leaving them one way in. We block it with a collemn of cars and use one team to lay down suppressing fire while the other unloads and secures the entrance until we can fall back inside."

"That's why I love ya baby, that beautiful brain of yours." She cocks her head at me and replies, "That's all?" We split. Two teams. After Charlie calls to the middle car, Marco runs up with some explosives we pinched from an Army convoy that got torn apart. We can see a scattered group of them moving our way out front. Once he's safe back inside the car, Marco grabs the walkie and asks, "Now how in the hell can those things do that?" I answer back, "They rely on every sense equally. As a result, they can see, hear, smell, and taste things we can't. It makes a bit of a ***** in the dark."

Marco is a good guy in spite of what he thinks about himself. We found him alone on the roof of some old house. Dead heads packed around it, scrambling to climb up to him. Everytime one did, he'd swing with a baseball bat and knock them off. He was a coal miner, just a few years in, rough and tumble kind of guy. But he was raised on the Bible, and stuff like this had him chilled to the core. Apparently, he wasn't such a good Christian.

Bobby drops it in gear and stomps on the gas, as we get closer, the back few cars pull up beside us, and we keep pace at about sixty-five. I grab a rifle and lean out, Sandra does the same. As do Alison and David. The four of us rain bullets into the growing horde until they're down low enough to suck bumper and we run them over.

We get through the entry point of the city and split at the main road. Sandra watches as the other team pulls out of sight behind us, and the gap is filled with the undead. We move across the bridge and find that, despite the shortness of it, it has a control section so that it can raise and lower. We pull over and I hop out, grab the shotgun and rush towards the controls.

A zombie steps from the little room and without stopping I shove the barrel in his mouth and squeeze the trigger. Then set to hitting every button until I see the bridge raise. Once it does I empty the other shell into the controls and head back to the car, reloading as I go.

The MacArthur building is an empirial statement to money-made-men. Sixty floors at the least, of shatter-proof glass and concrete frames with reinforced steel supports that could withstand a jet liner in a tornado. We stop the cars making two horizontal rows. The front door opens and the crew sets to unloading essentials as Sandra, myself, Marco, and David take up defense. Marco and Sandra on the front, David on the left, and me on the right.

The come in swarms. At first a rifle is good enough. Popping heads as the distance closes. Then Charlie comes back and starts packing some explosives under the cars. "Diego, I'm done. Everything's ready inside." They're getting too close now. Everyone starts running back to the building, and just as Sandra gets to it, one of them falls forward and grabs her. She turns and fires off a round killing it. The barrels lower across her eyes and she jumps back as I blast one off the steps before spinning to my left and dumping another round into the closest one, knocking it back into a few others that stumble around it and keep going.

We get inside and Marco shuts the door, sealing it with a chain and master lock. The tall mohogany doors with golden handles are all that stands between us and roaming death. And we keep moving back until it's safe enough for Charlie to hit the button. The explosion is a double edged sword. It kills off the mass outside. But it blows the doors wide open. The clock starts ticking for us to find this mysterious vault of salvation before they pour in.

sylouette

March 27th, 2006, 06:55 PM

Dang Hyde, please keep writing on this.

Mr. Hyde

April 9th, 2006, 04:33 PM

The explosion had knocked Sandra and me down; so the first thing we’re doing is picking ourselves up. We look around the lobby and start moving to the elevators. In the lobby there’s two flights of stairs, two offices in the corner, a receptionist desk between the stairs and in front of them a fair way. And two elevators on either side totaling out to four elevators. There are twenty-four of us. That’s six of us for each elevator, and that would total out the weight requirement. Outside that, we’re all carrying armaments and some food, so there’s additional weight as well.

We set up an arc around one elevator. People get on in twos and threes and we discover a problem instantly. A key is needed to move the elevator to the basement. It hits me. That’s what Jergon meant by it being locked tightly. With the elevators as the doors, and a key needed to gain basement access, then no zombie could get in. It was perfect. I hand Eric the key and tell him to use that, and then lay the key on the floor so we can retrieve the elevator and access to the basement.

Our numbers drop down more and more as the brooding undead start moving in. From twenty-four, we’re down to ten at this point. With the ten of us left, and four more getting on, the zombies start cascading like a wild river through the hole where the entrance was. Rifles, pistols, shotguns, and all manner of other weapons in hand, we open fire. Pushing down their ranks as more trample the lifeless heaps of meat as they run towards us. The elevator comes back up, and we're cutting it far too close.

The six of us can't make it like this. Marco runs back inside and knocks open the ceiling of the elevator so we can get down manually. That's when I see it. One of them moves in and stops. Looking for the most part normal, it's clear it's undead. I watch as it draws a gun and fires, the bullet ricocheting off the wall. Marco and David make it to the top of the elevator. I back inside and try to crawl through, the sound of the last three being eaten just behind me. Then I feel it. That sharp pain. How it hurts so bad when the skin holds, just to feel the extra pain of those jagged, broken teeth, pushing through with an inaudible popping sound. Feeling them slide out of my leg with a hunk of my calf.

It's over. Whatever happens after this, I'm dead. I crawl up and shut the hatch. The other two having climbed down ahead of me. I tear strips out of my shirt and wrap my leg. Even if I'd cut it off as soon as I was bitten, there'd only be a ten percent chance of survival, and I was never very lucky. A gun toting zombie though? Well, Solanum is a virus, and probably not unlike the Flu virus in that, at least now it seems, it can mutate. Maybe the mutation of it allowed it to partially activate the brain? But to what extent? This zombie had decent motor skills, and much better hand-eye coordination than the rest. It is like the only thing seperating it and myself is that it is a zombie and I'm not, yet.

I groan and take some painkillers I keep in a pocket. I can't go down. That would present a risk of infecting the rest. I can't stay, because I'm still alive. If I did go down, what are the chances of turning into a zombie like the one with the gun? That would be even more hazardous. There's a gunshot. The bullet pushes through the ceiling of the elevator. The slightly deafened sound of the weight limit buzz grows louder. The elevator jars slightly. But they have to know. Everyone needs to know there's a new threat. I grab the ladder and start on my way down.

Less than a half hour I'm there. There's already an almond smell emanating from my leg signalling gangrene. I get to the door and use a crowbar to pry it open. Sandra starts towards me and stops once she spots my leg. "Oh god," she stammers. "I don't have a lot of time to say this, so listen closely. There's something new up there. Some new strand of the virus. This new zombie can think, use tools, and when I saw it, it was using a firearm. Chances are the secret of this place isn't going to be a secret for long. Sandra, you're team leader from here on out," I tell them. She walks up to me, leans down, and kisses me one last time.

I toss all my gear inside except for three things: my shotgun, a grenade, and a machete. "I'll try to get a few before I go...less for you guys to deal with." One hour into it. I check the wound and it's discolored and clotted. I crawl back up the ladder. THe sound of the elevator creaking and metal popping echoes down the shaft. The fall wouldn't matter much to them. Unless they had something major done to the brain, or brain stem in the fall or following crash, they'd just push through the door.

I sit back on top of the elevator. THe hatch is open. But everything still looks chaotic inside. I dump two shells into the hole and toss the grenade down into the lobby. There's an explosion and the elevator is full again. I keep pumping in rounds and reloading until I'm out of ammo. I drop the gun down and hear a whisper. "What's it feel like, Diego? What's it feel like to know that the rest of your life is going to end before the sun comes up again?"

I grab the machete and he's there behind me. I turn and swing. He catches my wrist and slams me against the wall, my feet hanging over nothing. Being held by my throat and wrist as a ghost from days past stares deep into my eyes. I raise my right leg and shove him back. Landing down, my feet barely on the roof, I steady myself. "You don't remember me?" he asks. It's Merrick. Merrick was an old friend from my days in the Army, and one of the first people to be infected in front of me.

It can think. It can remember. I attack. He swings and I duck, slashing across his stomach. He doesn't even flinch as he catches my cheek with a hard left hook. It can't feel pain, and it is kicking my ass. He catches my arm again, and jerks it across the cable making me drop the machete. He kicks and I manage to grab his leg and shove him back against the wall. THe buzzer is going off like an air raid siren.

"Amazing isn't it?" he says, getting back into the fray. I duck under his punch and fold his knees toward me before jamming my elbow into his nose. "The first mutation stopped rigormortis. This one keeps our minds intact." he adds as he fakes a right and catches me with another left hook. I stumble and grab the cable for support.

One hour...fifteen minutes. He gets close. Wraps his arms around me. Then he bites me on the shoulder. "I did a lab study on my strain compared and combined with other strains," he says, holding me tightly. "This strain eats the other strains. The virus has evolved, and feeds on the weaker forms as well as life." He lets me go and slams my head against the wall a few times.

Good lord, this is fantastic. I love a good zombie story, and you've really managed to give this an original, different feel. It's refreshing to see the aftermath, rather than the initial chaos. Just fantastic.

Mr. Hyde

April 9th, 2006, 08:37 PM

Good lord, this is fantastic. I love a good zombie story, and you've really managed to give this an original, different feel. It's refreshing to see the aftermath, rather than the initial chaos. Just fantastic.

I can't say it's entirely original. I got the idea for the origins and how people carry themselves and equipment, from Max Brooks' "The Zombie Survival Guide." The idea for an evolving virus, I got from, as I mentioned in the story, the Flu virus.

Thanks man. I just hope I can lead it somewhere decent or at least continue with it as such.

Mr. Hyde

April 17th, 2006, 07:32 PM

Sannnndddrraaa. She's so beautiful....the world is more crisp than before. I can hear everything. Smell new odors. I can almost taste the air. I...missssss Ssssaaaaannnddrrraaaa. The world comes into fffffoooccuusss. I shake it off. Crawling to my feet, everything, every little detail of the world is so much more clear. I can hear the loudest groans and the faintest whispers. Next to me is the machete. Still stained with a dead man's blood.

What's following is an overwhelming desire for living flesh. Skin, arteries, warm blood, chunks of fat and muscle....it all sounds so disgusting, but I can't stop metaphorically watering at the mouth over the idea. I fix the machete back in the sheath and crawl down into the elevator. The swarms of undead ignore me. WHen I was knocked out, I must've been out long enough that I went into a coma from the infection, and died. Either way, nothing is touching me, and I'm free to clear the room.

But, the sheer amazement I've got keeps me from it. These aren't my brothers, or allies. For all I can gather, when I was awake and alive, they were my enemies, and still are. So why aren't they attacking me? Is the desire shared among us that we should feed on the living? I run back into the elevator and leap up into the shaft. Dare I test my new found body? I dare.

I step forward and drop down the gap. The floor comes fast enough and hear the bones snap. There's no pain. I gotta say, it's pretty damned cool when you can stand on broken legs. I push the bones back in place and knock on the elevator doors. Marco forces them open with a crowbar and I stare, somewhat unsurprised at David, Eric, Sandra, and Alyson pointing guns at me. "Calm down. I'm not here to eat anyone" I say, trying not to make a liar out of myself. "I just wanted to let you know, I'm gonna go try and thin out the numbers." I feel like a god. Invincible. But I know, it's only a matter of time before I end up eating one of them....I love Sandra. I could live forever with her. Sure we'd be zombies. But we'd never fear leaving each other. We'd just have to adjust.

"I have a story to tell." -Eric.

Seeing Diego like that was shocking in ways I didn't want to imagine. Now here I am, with my best friend sort of dead and running around like he's Cho Yun Fat. And it's not going to be long before he comes after us. Those suckheads can't resist it. Or maybe I'm trying to psyche myself up by distancing our companionship. Making it easier to take care of business when business needs taken care of. Either way, I didn't like seeing him reborn. It was like walking in on your lover with another man. Sweating all over each other. Moaning each other's name. That sick feeling you get in your gut, like you want to vomit. That feeling of hurt and betrayal. Like you wanna smash them pieces and stomp on their bodies until there's nothing left but a red gooey mess of ****. But you know you can't do it. That's how it felt seeing Diego.

If he comes back, he'll want in. If he wants in, he'll find a way in. Which means we have to find a way out. The elevator is too crowded. If he comes in that way, we could pour copper candies into him until he dust. He'd find another way once that was figured out, if he hasn't already figured it out. I look at the vents providing a nice cool breeze down here, and can see at least twelve openings. One of those would be fast enough to shock us and get the drop on us, and after that, we're all dead. He was good. Hell, Diego was the man in every sense of the word.

He'd never talk about his past or his future. He was stoic. A living statue. I met him in Bosnia. He was in the Army, and I was an independently hired soldier. There was this guy there with him, home town friend, some guy named Merrick. We went out, did our jobs, and we were a pretty close knit group for a while. Another hired hand, Sandra, was working out there as well. That's where she and Diego met, and fell in love. SHe had a sick sense of things. THe first present she gave him was a ring from some guy whose hand she'd blown off. The two got along great.

After it was over, Merrick re-enlisted, I quit my job, Diego and Sandra moved in and got married, and the two and I lived next door to each other until all this happened. Now, she's jilted by nature, Merrick is still gone, and Diego is a suckhead. If things get any worse...well I'll just hope they don't.

About an hour has gone by since we closed the doors. "Sandra," I say, "We can't let him back in here." "I know Eric," she replies. "How do you want to handle this?" I ask. She answers, "We wait it out. If he comes, I'll be the one that has to kill him." There is a somber tone to her voice, and a glistening feature of her eyes that tell me, at any minute she's going to break down in tears. I know she can tell the same about me. We knew Diego better than anyone. And more than anyone, we know what'll happen if he gets in here like he is.